Pretty In Ink

It took us ages to move about six inches. We were closer to the railing now, and I could see the cops barricading themselves behind their cruiser doors. One of them had a bullhorn.

“Police! Surrender!”

It was a little like when the wicked witch told Dorothy to surrender by writing it in the sky. It had the same effect, anyway. Nothing.

At least they’d stopped shooting.

Jeff slid off me onto his stomach next to me. I rolled onto my stomach, too, and we watched through the railing as two of the uniforms dashed out from behind their doors and toward the building. We waited for more shots, but none came.

I pulled myself up onto all fours, rocked back onto my heels, and slowly stood, backing up as I did. Jeff was mimicking me.

There was another stairway just a few doors down. We backed up until we reached it, then ran down the stairs two at a time. My heart was pounding again as we reached the bottom, which led into the pool area.

I took a couple of deep breaths, leaning over and putting my hands on my knees. I felt a hand massaging my back.

“You okay, Kavanaugh?”

I nodded and looked up to see Jeff staring at me with a worried expression.

“This was a bad idea,” I said. “I told you we shouldn’t come here.”

He stepped back and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Okay, so it was a bad call. But who knew?”

I was about to give him a smart-aleck comment back when movement to my left caught my eye.

Someone was lowering himself off the corner balcony. He wore a backpack and a baseball cap.

“What the-,” Jeff muttered.

The guy dropped to the ground, rolled over, and landed on his feet in a total James Bond way. The cap had come off, and I saw dark hair, a raised hand like a wave hello.

I took a step on instinct, but he shot off like the Road Runner being chased by Wile E. Coyote.

Jeff was already shouting at the cops.

I was speechless. Because I’d recognized him.

But it wasn’t a him.

It was Charlotte.

Chapter 36

I didn’t wait around to explain; I just ran after Charlotte. My sandals gripped the pavement as I ran across the pool deck, leaping over the diving board. The latch in the fence kept me busy long enough for Jeff to come panting up beside me.

“You should lay off those butts,” I admonished just as the latch let go and the door swung open. I went through, Jeff on my heels.

But when we got to the other side of the fence, we didn’t see anyone except a group of teenagers loping along the sidewalk. Cars whizzed past on the main road, their engines muffling the sound of the fountain in the center of the courtyard.

I turned to Jeff.

“It was Charlotte,” I said softly. “That’s who came over the balcony.”

I looked behind me to see whether any of the cops had come out after us, had seen Charlotte, too, but nothing.

Until another gunshot rang out.

Jeff and I looked at each other. I had been pretty certain that Charlotte was the one doing the shooting, and from the look on Jeff’s face, he’d thought so, too. There was no other reason why she would have made such a dramatic escape from the apartment building. Was there?

“Someone else was in there with her,” Jeff said.

I nodded. “Yeah. But who?”

We started back through the pool area again and saw cops taking the steps two at a time, their guns drawn.

Jeff took hold of my upper arm. “I think we should stay where we are,” he said.

“Sounds fine with me,” I said, noting that he did not let go of my arm. I made a point of looking at his hand and then looking at his face. “Do you mind?” I asked.

He pulled his hand away and rummaged in his breast pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He took it out, and I laughed. It looked as though it had been run over by a steamroller.

“Maybe someone’s telling you something,” I said.

He managed to get a cigarette out of the pack and used his thumb and first finger to try to round it out. He did a fairly good job of it, and then he stuck it in his mouth, using a lighter he took from his jeans pocket to light it.

He sucked on the cigarette, took it out of his mouth, and let out a long cloud of smoke.

I coughed.

“You one of those reformed smokers, Kavanaugh?” he said.

I shook my head. “Never smoked a cigarette in my life,” I said.

“Why am I not surprised?” he said.

We could hear banging on a door and shouting not very far away.

“What do we tell the cops about your employee?” Jeff asked after taking another hit off his butt.

“I’m not sure she’s still my employee,” I admitted. I’d pretty much had it up to here with Charlotte Sampson. She was up to something, something that may have gotten her friend Trevor killed and something that definitely got Wesley Lambert killed. And now she was in Trevor’s apartment, with all that cash, with someone who was shooting at us, at the police.

I just hoped it wasn’t Ace.

The minute I thought that, I stiffened. What if it was Ace?

“Do you have a cell phone on you?” I asked Jeff.

More shouting from above, and now the sound of wood splintering. The cops must be breaking the door down.

Jeff’s gaze was somewhere off behind me, and I realized he was checking whether someone else was going to be coming down that balcony route, like Charlotte had. He didn’t tear his eyes away even while he dug into his pocket and produced a cell phone. He handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, punching in the number of the shop.

“The Painted Lady.” I had never been so happy to hear Bitsy’s voice as I was that minute.

“Bits, it’s Brett.”

“Where are you?”

“That doesn’t matter right now, but what does is where Ace is.”

“Ace is here,” Bitsy said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Do you want to talk to him?”

“Yeah, I do.”

A few seconds passed; then I heard, “Brett?”

“Ace, what’s Charlotte up to?”

“What do you mean?” His tone was defensive, almost icy.

“I’m at Trevor’s apartment building, and she just shimmied down off a back balcony here like she was Spider-Man. This was after I got shot at from inside Trevor’s apartment.”